Annapolis Maryland

In August Andrew and I took a day trip to Annapolis Maryland.  It was crab season in Maryland and I was determined to get a some crab. My old manager recmomended Buddy's in downtown Annapolis. We ended up getting there at their lunch buffet. They had a great selection of steamed seafood, and several crab entrees.

Buddy's Seafood in Annapolis

View from the restaurant of downtown

My first plate of food from the buffet- yummy!!

After Andrew and I pigged out at the buffet, I decided I wanted to see the naval academy. Andrew on the other hand wanted to drive around Annapolis.  He won and we ended up in a neighborhood sitting on a park bench watching the sail boats. It was a beautiful day so this was really relaxing.

Peaceful water while relaxing on a park bench in Annapolis

In the book that 'i am following it specifies seeing the naval academy. Typically you have to park and walk to the academy and then go through security to get in. Once you are on campus you can walk around some more and see all the buildings. Andrew and I took a different approach. We hoped on a boat that went into the Chesapeake and pointed everything out in its tour. Andrew and I were able to have a boat ride and see the naval academy without all the walking and waiting to get in.

A collection of boats seen, yes that is a pirate ship and
yes those kids are chilling on the sail

Highlights of the Naval Academy

Andrew insisted we get a picture of the entrance.

Andrew and I finished our day trip by hanging out in the downtown square. Annapolis is very quaint which I love. Some of the buildings in this area have been there over 100 years. You can imagine the history that has happened in this part of town. 

Annapolis is a beautiful town. Andrew and I plan on going back while we live on the East Coast. We are hoping to do a sail class to learn how to sail and also eat some more delicious seafood. 

Manassas Battlefield

It is Labor Day weekend which means Andrew and I have an extra day to explore our new home- Washington DC. Last month, we made the giant leap and moved 1200 miles away from our friends and family. Andrew, my husband, lived in DC in 2006 while still in college. I love traveling and adventures which Washington DC offers plenty of opportunities to do both so we decided to move here. Every weekend since we moved we have travelled to new places and started an adventure together.

This Labor Day weekend we are doing a stay-cation. Day 1 was spent cleaning and a trip to the Manassas Battlefield. This is located about 45 minutes away from DC in Virginia. This battlefield is famous for being the first battle of the civil war. Both sides felt that this battle would be quick and that the war would be over. This battle was won by the south but at a cost of 1000's of soldiers from both sides.

My history loving husband was so excited to get to visit this. I was just as excited because this was one of the places in the book I am following. Andrew and I started at the welcome center. The battlefield costs $3.00  a person. After paying our $6.00, Andrew and I watched the movie on the history of Manassas. I think this is best way to start tour. This way when you visit the sites, you will know what the significance of the buildings and places is. 

There was an option to take a guided tour, but Andrew and I decided to go at our own pace. We walked through the field cannons, stopped for a photo op and followed the worn down trail to to the different sites. Below are some photos from our trip.

Welcome Center 

Watch the movie to learn about this :)

Monument honoring those that died in the 1st battle

Posing next the cannon

Battlefield of Cannons 

This was a fun place to go on Saturday afternoon. I would recommend going when it is not too hot and to wear comfortable clothing since there is a lot of walking involved. 

NOLA- Pat O'Briens and Cafe du Monde

Well it has been far too long since I last blogged. Last fall, with my new job, double course load- time escaped and I was not able to blog. With the new year here, I decided to start back up again. Last July, yes 8 months ago, I went to New Orleans for a bachelorette party for a dear friend of mine from college. 

The party planner, Casey put us at the Marriott on Canal Street. This hotel was perfect for exploring Bourbon Street and the rest of the French Quarter.  In the book, 1000 Places to See Before you Die, the author talks about two places I visited: Café Du Monte and Pat O'Briens. On the last day of our trip, we went to Café Du Monte for breakfast. This is an icon in the French Quarter and must be visited each time you visit New Orleans.  Usually you have to wait in line for a table and then have a waiter wait on you. I have seen people wait in line for over an hour to be seated. The group of girls I was with, taught me a secret: there is window in the restaurant that you can order beignets and coffee to go. There was no line and we got our beignets immediately. We went and sat in the courtyard just outside the restaurant and enjoyed our beignets without waiting in line or on a waiter to bring them to us. If you see a line, I would suggest doing what we did. 

The other place we visited in the French Quarter was a bar just off of Bourbon Street. Pat O's as Mandell calls it is a classic bar that you just visit when travelling to NOLA. The waiters are right out of the 1920s with bow-ties and great service. We went at night, however their Bloody Marys are some of the best and perfect in the morning. The most famous drink to order here is the hurricane. When we visited, we did not order the drink but I did get some pictures of it. The hurricane is a sweet drink made of rum, which after four days in NOLA and Florida is not something I wanted/ needed to consume.

I LOVE NOLA. It is a laid-back city, where you can relax, have a good time and enjoy great food. It is also a place where you can dress up or dress down and have a great time.  Word to the wise- if you are not found of humidity or did not grow up in Texas, July may not be the best month to visit this fantastic city.

Lesson 16

I reviewed the following blog's Commercial solar Entry.   I found it to be very informative. However, I have no experience with solar panels in commercial applications so the technical terms confused me. If someone was familiar with this particular technology, they would probably understand most of the material presented. This blog entry went on to describe benefits of installing this for a business as well as the ROI of investing in this technology.

One of the items missing from this blog was a call to action. Darren Rowse lists this as the final sign of an effective blog in a blog entry he wrote. This blog should have had a call to action for businesses to purchase this technology. It could have listed web sites to purchase the technology as well as grant application links. This blog was very informative and contains valuable information, however it does not contain a call to action.

Twitters to Follow

Twitter is the only SM channel that I have intentionally not joined. I was on Facebook the second my college could have it. I utilized Pinterst as soon as my account was approved. Twitter is whole other story. I think the symbols and amount of time following celebrities made me think twice about joining.  However, day that has changed. For a class assignment I had to join Twitter. Since I enjoy traveling and want to spend the rest of my life seeing the sights I tried to gear my Twitter toward traveling. I decided to follow The Travel Channel, Andrew Zimmerman and Samantha Brown.  I want Samantha Brown's job one day- whenever she decided to retire. I am considering following Ashton and Lindsey Lohan- but only for entertainment purposes. I do not expect learn anything intelligent from their Tweets.

On another note, I have decided to follow some sustainability tweets. The Carbon Footprint one sounds the most interesting to me. I feel like it relates to travel in some sort of way. Overall, this assignment has caused to enter the world of Twitter and embrace it, one tweet at a time.

@KaraHopeH

The Value of a LinkedIn profile

Discuss: What is your opinion of LinkedIn? What are the pros & cons? Be sure to include whether or not your currently have a LI profile. Are you a member of a LI group? Are you a regular contributor to the group? Do you post regular status updates and/or send notes to colleagues to keep in touch? What has your experience been? What have you learned about LI? ie. What advice would you give to a user? If you do not currently use LI, do you have plans to start? If yes, what will your focus be? If no, why not?

LinkedIn is a social media platform that I have lots of experience with. I have used it from a marketing perspective for an employer and also, for personal growth and looking for a new job. I would describe LinkedIn as Facebook for professionals. When I utilized LinkedIn for marketing purposes, I was a regular contributor to groups related to the industry my company was part of. I would post relevant articles, monitor group activity and post releases that I wrote for the company. One of posts, in particular, lead to me being the lead contributor for a couple of weeks. My contribution led to meeting other professionals within the industry. Since my job has change, I am no longer actively contributing to any groups.

This summer I went through a job transition. One of the ways I searched for new jobs was connecting with people on LinkedIn and applying for jobs through LinkedIn. I completed my profile, as well as searched thru all of my connections to find more people to connect and reach out to. This process taught me the power behind LinkedIn and the need to maintain my profile. As a result, the second I got my new job, I immediately updated my profile and began reaching out to my new colleagues.  

Eventually I would like to be active in groups and connect to people within my profession, however this takes time. I believe it is better to post quality content here versus posting something every day that may or not may not be useful. I would advise someone to build their profile completely, reach out to friends and colleagues to start building connections and join groups related to your profession. Once you join the groups, learn group etiquette and then contribute meaningful material to those groups. When you contribute it establishes credibility and leads to more connections. 

The only downside I have with LinkedIn is that it takes time to update statuses, post content and reach out to old colleagues. However this is the case with all Social Media mediums. When I have more time, I would like to spend some it on LinkedIn, because I believe it is a valuable tool in the professional social media world. 

Lesson 12, second half

Social Media policy is something to consider for all companies in to in order to themselves and one of their greatest assets: their employees. I agree with the article titled “Should Your Company Have a Social Media Policy”  that a social media policy should apply to every employee within an organization and just the marketing department.  This is because all employees market the company whether positively or negatively.

The article went on to discuss a great point- when a company gives employees tools, such as access to SM, training needs to be done on how to properly use the tool.

So many times, companies do not implement policies and procedures until it is too late. This article does a great job of creating a sense of urgency for implementation of the SM policy. If a company implements a policy sooner versus later, they have the ability to create a positive SM experience instead of reacting to a negative one.

I think this article could have done a better job on touching on who forms the policy and how. The author is an HR professional, and this is the department that typically creates employee wide policies. I believe for a policy of this scale, a variety of departments should have a say in policy. If representatives from HR, marketing, sales, finance and operations/ IT all collaborate together the policy can created can cover all departments and their specific needs/ uses for particular SM.  I also, believe when using collaboration, the policy will be accepted company-wide quicker and with less disagreement about its implementation. Overall, the article was easy to understand and I agree with most parts of it.